Versatile & Tempestuous
by bj
Summary: "There are no right answers." CJ/J, CJ/T (UST), and Cosmo.


DISCLAIMER: 'The West Wing' and all related materials do not belong to me. Sorry to ruin your plans for financial freedom.  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: CJ's Cosmo label is actually from the interview a local magazine did with Allison Janney. I set out with the idea of a Cosmo-themed humour piece, and ended up with this--possibly the most depressing fic I've ever written. Ah, well. The hippos dance where they will.  
  
SOUNDTRACK: Because I was actually listening to music while writing this. The Matthew Good Band's The Audio of Being.  
  
THANKS TO: Cosmo, for being a bastion of pseudo-feminism and even pseudoer femininity. Janet Smartt, who wrote the headline. The Xfm DJs, who always play good music while I'm writing. Carole, who always makes me feel like a zero--you are indescribable.  
  
  
  
Versatile & Tempestuous  
  
By BJ Garrett  
  
  
  
"What are you doing?" a gruff, irritated voice asks.  
  
CJ is bent over the new issue of Cosmo, reading her interview.  
  
'Political Party Girl.'  
  
This is Cosmo's label for her.  
  
Better than 'Bombshell Babe of the 101st,' she concedes.  
  
"Nothing," she tells Toby, closing the magazine, back cover up, sliding it into an open drawer nonchalantly. "What can I do for you?"  
  
Cosmo doesn't matter. Of course not. What they call her bears no significance. It is not important.  
  
So she will not complain to Toby that they called her a party girl. She will not complain to anyone. Not even Sam, who listens when she complains.  
  
"Do you not care that Cosmo has labelled you a--let me see--a party girl?" he asks, folding an identical copy of the magazine to her interview and holding it up so she can see. "Do you not care that teenage boys across this great nation are now, as we speak, choosing universities based on whether or not you would go there?"  
  
She rests her chin on her hands, aware that he will think her savvy and sexy--in that order--with her glasses perched on her nose as she smiles carelessly at him. "I wasn't aware they meant that kind of party. I was going with: Political party. Girl."  
  
He mutters and looks down the hall. Turns back to her. "Men aren't going to read it that way."  
  
"Men read Cosmo?"  
  
This gives Toby pause. "Yeah."  
  
He shifts his weight--left foot, right foot. Pause. "For the quizzes," he finally says. "So we know the right answers."  
  
He was not quick enough to be clever this time, and he knows it, so she gives him a pitying look instead of a pity laugh. "There are no right answers."  
  
He faces the hallway and gestures above his head with the magazine. "That explains it. That explains everything!"  
  
She wonders momentarily if Andi ever did Cosmo quizzes.  
  
As he stalks away, hopefully not to gripe at people about her lack of caring over the Cosmo label, she takes the magazine out of the drawer and opens it, laying it flat on her blotter.  
  
  
  
She asks herself the quiz questions as she leaves for the briefing room.  
  
'No, I don't think you have to be good-looking, clever, and talented to be successful. It does help, though, if I do say so myself.'  
  
'No, he doesn't bring me flowers, the bastard.'  
  
Carol opens the door for her, but she stops, looking down at the page torn from the magazine, thinking it over.  
  
'Drop-dead gorgeous. That's two words, right? Yeah.'  
  
  
  
It is midnight. She is sitting at her desk, face pressed against the blotter, asking herself why she always does this.  
  
Why she always agrees to have one last coffee with him before she leaves.  
  
Why she always smiles when he makes one-too-many sex jokes.  
  
Why she always makes the first move, just to shut him up.  
  
Why she never says, "No, I've given up drinking caffeine after ten pm and before one am. Good night."  
  
Why she never looks at him coldly. "You think you're cute when you sexually harass me, but you're really not."  
  
Why she never walks away--"Just shut up, Josh."  
  
  
  
"Just shut up, Josh."  
  
He always looks surprised when someone interrupts him. Then mildly angry, as if he were jokingly contemplating ordering the interrupter's death.  
  
It occurs to her he probably doesn't know those are the words she wishes she could say when they're not in Staff, when they're not standing in a group in the light of day, just before they're pressed against his desk.  
  
"Okay."  
  
She narrows her eyes at him, unsure of his reaction. He shouldn't be all just 'okay.' There should be something on him, indicating that later, over coffee, he will ask just what she meant by interrupting him.  
  
But he blinks and looks at Leo.  
  
"Well, then," Leo says significantly. "I think we're all done here."  
  
They line up at his office door. Toby and Josh, deep in conversation. Toby always wants to hear the end of Josh's plans. Sam smiles at her as they exit together.  
  
"How you doin', CJ?" he asks.  
  
"Fine, thank you--"  
  
I'm doubting my sexual orientation. I drink too much coffee. I have sex with your best friend at least three times a week. How are you?  
  
"-And yourself?"  
  
"I'm good."  
  
"That's just great."  
  
They walk in silence, he is cheerful, sleeves rolled, tie loosened. She is none of those.  
  
"Say, Sam," she says as she stops to enter her office and he goes by.  
  
Turning, he raises his eyebrows.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Two words that describe me."  
  
Obvious: This is the last question he expected her to ask.  
  
"Can I think about it? And tell you later?"  
  
"No. It's not a thinking question. It's an impression question. Two words that describe me."  
  
He thinks about it anyway. His eyes roll up, study the ceiling, then drift back to her.  
  
"Will you hit me if I give you the wrong answer?"  
  
"There are no wrong answers."  
  
"Oh."  
  
He puts his hands in his pockets and gazes off into her open office door. Carol walks between them to her desk.  
  
"Marianne Walters' office called for you," she says, handing CJ a pink slip.  
  
"Okay, thanks."  
  
She leaves Sam standing in the hallway, pondering her question.  
  
  
  
There is an hour before midnight. The pink slip flickers in a draft, sliding infinitesimally slowly from one side of her in-box to the other.  
  
She is waiting for him, but she doesn't know what for.  
  
"Hey."  
  
She looks up, already relieved that it isn't Josh. "Hi, you."  
  
He crinkles his eyes in that way she loves. He is trying to look serious, but it comes off as a man anticipating a very funny joke. "Two words, huh?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Question number fourteen. Page 67. Quiz titled, 'Know Yourself, Know Your Man.'"  
  
"Toby."  
  
There is no stopping him.  
  
He pulls the magazine out from behind his back, opened to the correct page. Of course he's prepared.  
  
"Does he bring you flowers, CJ?"  
  
"Shut up."  
  
"Does he call the morning after?"  
  
"I really think I just said--"  
  
This cannot go on. She braces her hands on her desk.  
  
"Two words that describe yourself. If his are synonyms--"  
  
And pushes herself up.  
  
"Stop it."  
  
Her voice is low, absolute.  
  
No one imagines Toby would respond to a request made in such a tone. But he does.  
  
"Who is it?" he asks mildly. He tosses the magazine onto a pile in the corner.  
  
"It's not important."  
  
It seems important. When he touches her face, tells her she's the only one who takes him as he is, doesn't expect--  
  
She expects nothing, and nothing is what she gets.  
  
"Unattainable. Magnificent."  
  
She moves backwards a little bit, still hanging on to her desk. He shouldn't say that. They both know how he feels, what he wants, but there is no mirror inside her for that. There is no mirror there for anyone.  
  
"Is that the right answer?"  
  
Josh doesn't need her either. That's why it's perfect.  
  
"There are no right answers, Toby. I'm going home."  
  
She takes her coat and purse, brushes past him out the door. Josh is coming down the hall with two mugs of coffee.  
  
Something rises in her throat and she freezes.  
  
"Where you off to?" he asks, smiling.  
  
"Bed," she replies stiffly, then winces.  
  
He cocks his head, salutes her with a mug. "I hear ya. Good night, Claudia J."  
  
Kicking herself, she turns around to flee.  
  
Toby is still standing in her office, but he has turned too, to watch them in the hall.  
  
He has the look of a man mentally bouncing a ball. Connecting the dots.  
  
Then his face closes and he walks out of her office, hugging the corner as if to stay as far away from her as possible.  
  
  
  
The quiz is crumpled on the floor of her car, twisted and jagged like a tiny universe. At every red light she looks down and to the right, stares at it for a few seconds.  
  
She does not feel drop-dead gorgeous anymore.  
  
She does not feel unattainable or magnificent.  
  
She feels cold and cruel.  
  
"I don't come, Toby. He can't make me--"  
  
Green light.  
  
  
  
Everything looks bright in the morning, the fading streetlights glinting off rain-beaded windshields and quarter panels, the sun rising in a splendour of gold and fuchsia. CJ smiles to herself as she remembers the long rows of fuchsias on either side of the walk outside her mother's house.  
  
She's placed the magazine on the passenger seat, open to her interview. Every red light, she looks at the picture, bisected by her label.  
  
She wore a dark blue suit and white shirt. They gave her a pair of dark plastic-framed glasses to place on the end of her nose. After some subtle flattery, she was disposed to expose a little cleavage.  
  
She is seated backwards on a chrome chair, heels braced against the legs, arms crossed on the back, smiling that savvy smile Toby loves, pointing offhandedly at the camera with a sharp No. 2 Dixon Ticonderoga.  
  
  
  
Sam peels himself away from a group of staffers to follow her to her office.  
  
"I have an answer," he says triumphantly.  
  
She shrugs and hangs her jacket up. "Okay."  
  
She has come to the realisation that desire for physical contact is not a good reason to have sex with someone, and lack of reciprocation is not a good reason to reject a man who has loved you for twenty years in favour of someone who doesn't love you at all. People--men you don't love, and never will.  
  
"Don't you care?" Sam asks, wounded. "I thought really hard about it."  
  
Pausing as she pulls her chair out to sit down, CJ gives him an indifferent glare. "It's not a thinking question. It's an impression question."  
  
She sits.  
  
"You know how I said there were no wrong answers?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Turns out that isn't the case at all. There are no right answers."  
  
He puts his hands in his pockets and looks at her shrewdly. "What's going on?"  
  
I'm going to dump your best friend, but he won't care. That's okay, because I don't care either. He can't give me an orgasm. I think I'm a lesbian.  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"CJ."  
  
"Don't 'CJ' me, Sam. I know my name, thank you. I don't need fucking Cosmo to tell me who I am."  
  
After a second, he agrees. "Yes."  
  
"I am savvy, you know. It's not just a smile. I am savvy. And I'm sexy with or without those stupid glasses. I'm, I'm magnificent, too. But, but."  
  
"But what?"  
  
"Will you tell Toby I need to talk to him, please?"  
  
Sam jerks himself out of confidante mode and nods. "Sure."  
  
She puts her head in her hands for a moment, then starts grabbing files and post-its, refreshing her memory for the first briefing. Sliding her glasses on with a silent curse.  
  
It is in the middle of a vaguely detailed breakdown of the latest Palestinian-Israeli peace talks at Camp David that she realises Sam hasn't left.  
  
"What?"  
  
"You really don't want to hear my answer?"  
  
"No, Sam. I really don't. Please go away."  
  
  
  
Something about him tells her he's dumped her first. The set of his shoulders, the way he laughs at a stupid pun she makes. She's not an object of desire anymore. At least, not for him.  
  
She is uncertain whether she should be glad or offended.  
  
She tears pages out of Cosmo. One page at a time. Crumples them into universes and throws them out the window.  
  
"I was faking it."  
  
"You think I didn't notice?"  
  
"I think you didn't care."  
  
"I did. I do. It does no wonders for my ego to know I wasn't good enough for you."  
  
"It's not you."  
  
"Then what is it? Drinking coffee before sex turns you off?"  
  
"No."  
  
"CJ?"  
  
"Josh, it's done, right?"  
  
"Well, yeah. That's what we're talking about, isn't it?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Okay."  
  
He opens her office door. He had not moved any farther into her office than was necessary to close it.  
  
"I've got two words for you, CJ."  
  
"What."  
  
Standing in the rectangle of light, people bustling behind him. They are unaware that he couldn't bring her off.  
  
"Savvy and sexy."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"You're welcome."  
  
Obvious: Sam neglected to tell him there were no right answers.  
  
  
  
Standing outside Leo's office, she contemplates Margaret.  
  
And feels nothing.  
  
'Maybe I've lost my sex drive.'  
  
That makes her feel better. That can be funny. She smiles at Margaret.  
  
'Hello? Manchester Airport? I arrived on a flight from LA four years ago and I lost my libido at your terminal.'  
  
Margaret gives her a startled look and rushes her into the office.  
  
  
  
When their meeting is over, she pauses, a hand on the doorknob. She doesn't want to walk past Margaret again.  
  
"Cosmo, hey?" he says with a wry smile, taking advantage of her lack of motion.  
  
She shrugs, smiling back.  
  
"You know, my sister always used to do the quizzes in there. They still have those?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"They had the stupidest questions, you know?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
He gets up, puts a hand on her shoulder, affectionate and fatherly. "CJ, you're amazing and irreplaceable."  
  
"Thank you, Leo."  
  
"You're welcome."  
  
"There are no right answers, Leo."  
  
He smiles again, sad and friendly. "I know."  
  
  
  
Toby does not come to see her.  
  
Perhaps Sam forgot to tell him.  
  
"I did, CJ. I swear. Don't look at me like that."  
  
  
  
His office door is closed, the blinds drawn. She hears a rubbery sound.  
  
Thwap.  
  
Thwap.  
  
Thwap.  
  
Why he is bouncing the ball is a mystery. He knows. She saw it in his face when he walked away from her last night.  
  
She knocks.  
  
"Toby? We need to talk."  
  
Something bounces off the door. She takes it as a sign that she may enter.  
  
  
  
She has been undeniably cruel to him. And cold.  
  
It should not surprise her that he is the same to her now.  
  
The place inside her where her self-assurance lies, where a piece of glossy paper is printed with flowery letters: Toby loves me--it is washed away in a flood of pain.  
  
She has broken him. Or rather, she has broken his expectations of her. If ever she was to have an office romance--"It wasn't a romance!" she shouts-- she was to have it with him.  
  
It would have mattered, though.  
  
She needed someone to touch, someone who wouldn't care. She couldn't do that to him.  
  
  
  
"CJ!"  
  
Her whole being is flushed and empty. But she tries. "Hey, Sam. What can I do for you?"  
  
After her stoic chill of this morning, he is, understandably, surprised into silence.  
  
"Well?"  
  
"Do you want to hear my answer now?"  
  
He's not going to give it up, she realises. And hey, whatever it is, it can only make her feel better, right?  
  
"Shoot."  
  
They walk for a moment. He is grinning to himself. It must be a real zinger.  
  
"There are no right answers, remember. Don't build yourself up too much."  
  
Carol hands her two pink slips and she opens her office door. A dark movement at the end of the hall catches her eye.  
  
Toby ignores her wave as he leaves Josh's office.  
  
"Did you hear me, CJ?"  
  
"Sorry?"  
  
"Versatile and tempestuous."  
  
He raises his eyebrows, still smiling that proud smile.  
  
"You spent a lot of time on that, didn't you?"  
  
He shrugs modestly.  
  
"Thank you. I like it very much."  
  
His grin turns brilliant, and he continues down the hall and into Josh's office.  
  
There are no right answers.  
  
That explains it.  
  
  
  
End. 


End file.
